Thursday, February 8, 2018

MNANGAGWA METER LAUNCHED

A website called Mnangagwameter has been
launched with a mission to collate, track and
analyze promises made by President Mnangagwa
since his first day in office. No longer will an
incumbent President make promises that remain
unfulfilled or remain forgotten in the depths of
Google and recycled newspaper.
The man behind this initiative, Vusi Nyamazana, a
Political Scientist, introduces this novel government
watchdog tool that's unlike anything else found in
Zimbabwe. "The website is a non-partisan resource
that is useful to all people, regardless of political
viewpoint, who are interested in monitoring the
accomplishments of President Mnangagwa in an
unfiltered manner." says Nyamazana.
Vusi Nyamazana
What inspired Nyamazana to introduce the website
is that increasingly, Zimbabweans are losing faith in
politics. The biggest reason for this is the seemingly
unrealistic, empty and unfulfilled promises. "How
can anyone keep faith in politics whilst there are
such confusing pile of conflicting pile of conflicting
views on the government's progress?" he says .
"If we want a strong and responsive democracy in
Zimbabwe, we need to develop a culture of
"Monitorial Citizenship", where we monitor these
promises and challenge the government where it
falls short. Civic engagement is too important to be
something we do only at elections." he adds.
On the sites homepage, there are four themes
representing the policy categories Mnangagwameter
aims to monitor, including governance, economy,
social issues, and industry & commerce. Within
each category, are the individual verifiable promises
President Mnangagwa made through policy
positions or in news media.
Nyamazana laid overwhelming emphasis on
President Mnangagwa to publicly release the
Ministerial targets for the first 100 days and beyond.
"Armed with this information, the citizens can easily
assess government's progress and effectiveness in
achieving promises," he says.
As progress takes place in each of these
categories, a tracker next to the specific promise will
be updated from "Not Started", "Adequate Progress",
"Inadequate Progress", or "Achieved". Nyamazana
has made sure that the status of a particular
promise is solely based on evidence - online news
articles and official government websites.
So far, the website has tracked President
Mnangagwa's 73 days in office, and to date the
website has listed 89 promises made by President
Mnangagwa.
The site also has access to an analytics board,
which features several useful graphs charting
President Mnangagwa's promises over time or by
category.
The website, true to its claim of being non-partisan,
will provide a discussion forum that allow citizens to
post comments on the Presidents performance.
Citizens can also discuss the promises on the
Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/
MnangagwaMeter.